PROPOSAL TYPE
Traditional Panel
SEEKING
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
- Memory
- Material Culture
- Museums/Exhibits
ABSTRACT
Heritage and identity-based museums emphasize the confluence of history, memory, and identity of the communities they represent. Public historians have a responsibility to humanize, interpret, and visualize these histories that often require considerations of violence, displacement, and erasure. The Auschwitz Jewish Center (AJC) in Oswiecim, Poland navigates these challenges as they represent the local history of Jewish life in the town. Like other Jewish Museums the AJC interprets Jewish history, but confronts representation in proximity to sites of mass murder and in the absence of contemporary Jewish life. Interpreting local Jewish heritage in Oswiecim highlights these challenges and stresses the responsibility of interpretation.
DESCRIPTION
The goals of this proposal are to join or design a panel of public historians focusing on the interpretation and representation of history, memory, and identity in identity-based museums or other heritage institutions. This panel addresses the theme: “Sessions which explicitly consider our shared responsibilities as public historians: to each other, to the communities we serve, to the pasts, people, and places we interpret, and to the world we live in.” The session could include projects focusing on the historical representation and interpretation of identity, the responsibility of public historians in conveying history and meaning, and navigating challenges in representing identity as a result of historic violence, displacement, and absence.
My project examines the role of public historians in Jewish Museums, especially in their representation of the Holocaust. The Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oswieicm, Poland is the only remaining Jewish heritage presence in the town. Curators interpret its more than four hundred years of local Jewish history, and presents this history near the historic site of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among the challenges of representing Jewish life in proximity to a symbol of Jewish death, the museum emphasizes the long history of Jewish presence and the impact of Jewish absence.
This proposal draws on themes of representation and exhibition, curation, material culture, and historical memory, and could gather a panel based on themes of Jewish Museums or Holocaust representation specifically, or expand to a discussion of how identity-museums and heritage institutions more broadly address the responsibilities of interpreting history, memory, and identity. This panel arrangement might include projects focusing on BIPOC histories, LGBTQIA+ histories, or other identities.
My goals for this proposal include finding other public historians who are engaged and/or interested in these themes to form a panel, or to receive feedback that directs this proposal to another relevant panel. I am eager to discuss how this might develop with interested panelists. More broadly, I am also grateful for any feedback that might expand or focus this proposal to better shape my topic for a discussion related to historical memory, identity in museums, and curatorial responsibility. I look forward to receiving advice on directing this proposal or communicating with panelists who are interested in these themes for a session.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Hannah Lahti, [email protected]
ALL FEEDBACK AND OFFERS OF ASSISTANCE SHOULD BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 10, 2024. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.